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What is Past is Prologue

A revised and expanded version of the article that appeared
in the Public Eye,
with additional material by Fred Clarkson, other appendices, and footnotes

Introduction

The roar was visceral. A torrent of sound fed by a vast subconscious
reservoir of anger and resentment. Repeatedly, as speaker after speaker
strode to the podium and denounced President Clinton, the thousands in
the cavernous auditorium surged to their feet with shouts and applause.
The scene was the Christian Coalition's annual Road to Victory conference
held in September 1998-three months before the House of Representatives
voted to send articles of impeachment to the Senate.

Former Reagan appointee Alan Keyes observed that the country's moral
decline had spanned two decades and couldn't be blamed exclusively on
Clinton, but when he denounced Clinton for supporting the "radical
homosexual agenda," the crowd cheered and gave Keyes one of his
several standing ovations. Republican Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire
attacked Clinton's foreign policies, stating that the "globalists
of the New World Order" must not be allowed to sell out American
sovereignty.

Most attacks on Clinton highlighted his sexual misconduct and subsequent
cover-up as proof that he was unfit to remain President, but the list
of complaints was long. When the American Conservative Union distributed
a National Impeachment Survey with the type of loaded question typical
of the direct-mail genre. It asked:

"Which Clinton Administration scandal
listed below do you consider to be `very serious'?"

In addition to attention to scandals, those attending the annual conference
clearly opposed Clinton's agenda on abortion, gay rights, foreign policy,
and other issues.

Several months later, much of the country's attention was focused on
the House of Representatives "Managers" and their pursuit of
a successful impeachment of Clinton in the Senate. Few people understood
the vast right-wing political machinery that was mobilized to pressure
the managers to fight on and never give up.1 Those
gathered at the Road to Victory Conference are naturally inclined to
oppose Clinton, but they were "educated" by a large number
of relatively unknown right-wing groups and individuals to see Clinton
as the embodiment of evil¾not just a liberal, but corrupt,
immoral, and even a murderer. They are the foot soldiers in the "Culture
War," the backlash launched by the political right against the Post-WWII
social liberation movements. It has replaced communism as the right's
major unifying focus.

Today's Culture War is, in part, a continuation of the right's long-standing
campaign against the ideas of modernity and even the enlightenment. Some
openly support the Culture War as part of the age-old battle against
forces aligned with Satan.

Demonization is central to the process. Essayist Ralph Melcher notes
the "venomous hatred" directed toward the entire culture exemplified
by the President and his wife succeeded in making "Bill and Hillary
into political monsters," but represented the deeper continuity
of the right's historic distaste for liberalism.2 As
historian Robert Dallek of Boston University puts it, "The Republicans
are incensed because they essentially see Clinton...as the embodiment
of the counterculture's thumbing of its nose at accepted wisdoms and
institutions of the country."3

Liberals are demonized for tolerating godless moral relativism and sinful
immorality-especially in the form of abortion and gay rights. Liberals
also are demonized for supporting a strong federal government, aggressive
regulatory oversight, and global interdependence-seen as subversive collectivism
that undermines sovereignty and the spirit of free enterprise.

The Christian Coalition audience's palpable hostility to Clinton and
all he represents illustrates the zeal of the foot soldiers mobilized
in the crusade for God and country. We should not discount the political
impact of these activists, who are motivated by deep ideological, theological,
and emotional commitments. While the Senate voted not to sustain the
charges sent over by the House of Representatives, there is no truce
in the Culture War. Bill and Hillary Clinton continue to serve as high
profile targets.

Much of the original constituency for the impeachment battle came from
the Christian Right, but the Christian Right does not act alone or in
isolation. Right-wing attacks on President Clinton flow from a large
and diverse network of individuals and organizations. This is not so
much a secret conspiracy against President Clinton as a loosely-knit
pre-existing coalition among several sectors of the political right that
share an anti-Clinton agenda, despite wide differences in political outlook
and style. As analyst Russ Bellant explains, "different sectors
on the right didn't have to agree on the person they would choose to
replace Clinton; all they had to do was agree that they wanted Clinton
to go."4 It is this convergence
of anti-Clinton sentiment across sectors of the right that accounts for
the fervor and drive of the anti-Clinton campaign.

Most of us are tired of the impeachment scandal and interminable pundit
ruminations about it. This article, however, will review the attacks
on President Clinton with an eye to discerning clues to how the Christian
Right and its allies will regroup and launch the next battle in the Culture
War. I will pay special attention to the process by which dubious conspiracy
theories became acceptable within the Republican Party, and then became
major headlines. I also will examine why the right's leaders and followers
pushed so hard for the impeachment of Clinton, and why the failure of
the campaign has left such bitterness and disillusionment within the
right's ranks.